IN reply to Mr Wilcock's letter concerning the suggested industrial development on Darwen Moor, which some people refer to as a wind farm.

I find it difficult to reconcile the dropping of thousands of tonnes of concrete, new roads and drainage systems, disruption of wildlife and the disfigurement of the environment to be farming as I know it.

We cannot ignore nuclear risk but the government and the British Wind Energy Association admit that even with the building of 15,000 to 20,000 turbines, not one conventional or nuclear power station will be closed.

And to build so many turbines would require a wind farm covering 500 sq/km.

So if the developers get Darwen Moor, they may well cast their eyes on the Golden Hills at Billinge, Pickup Bank, the Grane, Turton, Belmont and anywhere else they consider suitable.

The letter describes the turbines as "quite nice".

Well, well I suppose nice depends on one's sense of the aesthetic and no doubt many would consider a cow sawn in two and dropped in an aquarium full of formaldehyde to be quite nice, but at least one isn't forced to look at it on top of a hill.

Harold Snape

Carus Avenue

Hoddlesden

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